


Warrior

by Kannika



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Drabble, Gen, PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-22 01:34:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9575990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kannika/pseuds/Kannika
Summary: Clarisse feels war in her bones- which means she doesn't feel all of the consequences of it.Maybe, she thinks sometimes, she should.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Clarisse was one of my favorite characters in the original series, so I wanted to write something for her. I headcanon that while she has PTSD in certain circumstances, she copes very well in the aftermath of battles, and since she always felt like a bit of an outsider I decided that would probably be a factor.

People don’t understand Clarisse because they aren’t soldiers. 

They don’t _think_ like soldiers. She’s aware that a lot of people say that she doesn’t think at all, and that stings, but when it comes down to it? Battle clicks for her. Weapons feel right in her hands in a way nothing else does. She sees people in terms of threat or ally or prey. She looks at a formation and sees the weak spots and kill spots. She can’t do strategy the way that Frank Zhang of the Romans can (he’s a good choice for praetor, she approves of one thing about Camp Jupiter at least), but she sees the simpler points. She’s trained herself to. 

And then there’s the other part of battle, of war. The consequences. She’s been fighting her whole life, punching out bullies and stabbing monsters and beating down people that are threats to the few things she calls hers, and she’s grown accustomed to what that brings. The way injured people scream. The blood on her hands. The flashbacks. What it means to kill things, to irreparably destroy something.

After the Battle of Manhattan, when she slaughters a drakon and a whole street of monsters, people watch her like they expect her to break. Like it should have some sort of impact on her that everything else hasn’t, like it will be the tipping point. But it doesn’t. She doesn’t hide it from them, it’s just not there. She hears other campers, even in her own cabin, scream and thrash with nightmares, or freeze when they see blood, or cry over strange things, and she knows that it’s the uglier side of war. When you grow up with it, it’s normal. When it’s new, it’s terrifying. 

For a while she gets angry at all of it, and annoyed, but she’s aware it makes her a bad person to be irritated by people suffering. She takes it for a few weeks before she absolutely has to tell someone, so she goes to Chris. He’s already aware she’s a bad person. He just rationalizes it. 

“I just… I’ve done a lot more than they have, and I’m not feeling any of it. And if I have to tell one more crying kid that it’ll be alright I’m gonna snap and punch them instead. Get over it.” She stops herself. It’s possible even Chris has a limit and she’ll find herself alone again. “And… I can’t make myself stop thinking it.”

He nods and looks out over the ocean. “I get what you mean… but I get them, too. Like, surely there was a time when you were younger that you were scared of how violent you were. That you wondered… if you were capable of hurting people, what else were you capable of?”

“Maybe.”

He glances at her with an eyebrow raised. That means she’s putting up barriers again. He wants her to be honest so he tells her when she does it. 

“Yes.” She admits. “But I never… did any of this. I don’t get it.”

“Different people deal with trauma in different ways- not just fighting.” He nudges her arm. “Remember when you helped me after the labyrinth? How you were patient and I started to deal with it a little better each time it struck? Think of it like that. It’s not permanent. Just new and scary.” 

She nods, nearly thanks him, but he’s not paying attention. He’s still in his memories, still struggling to explain it because he needs to speak. She waits. 

“It feels like you’re not you anymore,” he says at last. “Like… I kind of remember when I went crazy after being in the labyrinth. I was so scared of myself- what I did, while I was down there. Like if I hurt people, then what else could I do? Was I that person all along?”

There’s the difference between them, Clarisse realizes. He’s scared of being that person who destroys monsters without faltering or moves on from seeing the light die out of a person’s eyes. Everyone else is, too. 

She can’t stand to be anything else.


End file.
